Apple releases new 'Podcasts' app

DubDJ

Just seen it available in iTunes. It's a standalone Podcasts app. Design wise it looks like it has some of the elements of the updated iTunes and app stores coming with iOS 6.

EDIT: More info via 9to5Mac.

As we reported on a few weeks ago, Apple has just released a brand new free universal iOS app, Podcasts. Apple describes this as as being “the easiest way to discover, subscribe to and play your favorite podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore hundreds of thousands of free audio and video podcasts from the Podcasts Catalog, and play the most popular podcasts, organized for you by topic, with the all-new Top Stations feature.”

The app weighs in at 8.8 MB, requires iOS 5.31 or later, and supports iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch (4th Gen) or later and every iteration of the iPad. “Podcasts” is the latest official Apple app to be released, joining a cast of successful titles including the iWork and iLife suites.

Sad Professor

I just bought Downcasts last week. Typical.

I had an idea this was coming, but thought it would September/October alongside iOS 6.

Anyway, it looks good, and allows subscription, which was majorly lacking previously.

Lord Nikon

I've looked on the App Store through my iPhone and it's not there...

Sad Professor

I found it in the Featured tab. If its not there for you do a search for "podcasts", or use the link in DubDJ's post.

jack presley

There might be a different reason for the 'redeem' button in the new Podcast app but -

http://www.cultofmac.com/175803/starting-in-ios-6-apple-might-introduce-paid-podcast-subscriptions/

Sad Professor

I think the blogs might be reading too much into this. The redeem button is possibly just a leftover element from the iTunes Store.

faceman

Can't see this happening. If it does, people will just go direct to get the podcast for free

Sad Professor

Well, I think the thread title may be a bit misleading. If this did happen, it would be the podcasters charging for it, in which case they are obviously aren't going to provide a free version. I'd imagine many podcasters would welcome paid podcasts as an alternative to sponsorship which can be easily skipped over - there's even a 30 second skip button in Apple's new Podcast app.

Dades

Could be useful.

I find TuneIn excellent for podcasts but if I want to switch between the podcast and the radio I lose my place in the timeline.

Downloading now...

Sad Professor

The good thing about this app is that you have the choice to download or stream and it remembers your position regardless.

It's still lacking in a few areas though. Some of the buttons are too small. There's no option to limit auto-downloading to when you are on WiFi. And it doesn't sync your subscriptions across multiple devices.

padraig_f

Sad Professor wrote: »

I just bought Downcasts last week. Typical.

Had a look at Podcasts, looks fine but think I'll be still using Downcast for the next while. More fully featured, you mentioned the wifi thing, and I also find per-subscription settings very useful, e.g. 'keep last 3 podcasts' for some subscriptions and 'keep all unplayed' for other subscriptions. If the only option is to keep all unplayed (which it seems to be for Podcasts), you fill up your phone memory very quickly.

Sad Professor

You can set how long to keep individual podcasts using Podcasts as well. Just turn on auto download for that podcast and the option will appear.

jack presley

I've been playing around with it and I'm not too impressed to be honest. I synched from Itunes and while it copied over existing podcasts there, it didn't copy over subscriptions that had no episodes in my library so I'll have to search and add them individually.

Is there any way to set up a playlist? I haven't played around with it too much but it seems to play all episodes of one podcast before moving onto the next. I don't want to listen to 10 episodes of one podcast in a row. I want to be able to pick and choose the ones I want to listen to.

Fingleberries

It's nice to be able to subscribe to Podcasts from the iPhone, but I find that the application is very buggy - it will become unresponsive, crash or take a long time to respond to input (or to start playing a podcast 'episode')
Running on a 3Gs with iOS5.1.1

jack presley

I've deleted the app now (not as user friendly as other podcast apps). I've gone back to using rssradio and the standard iTunes method (although I presume I won't be able to use iTunes when iOS 6 comes out)

DubDJ

Been using the app a while now. Tested on iPhone 4 and the new iPad.

Overall I'd only give this app 2-3 stars. The app itself looks amazing. I love the whole design. Especially the reel-to-reel player and sleep timer. However I find the app extremely buggy. Very unresponsive. And takes a long time to load thumbnails. All of the previous apps that Apple have released have worked flawlessly for me. Without one single problem. Think they shoulda tested this one for a longer amount of time and made it perfect. Like their others. Still I'm sure they'll improve the performance in a future update. And make it perfect like they always do

Sad Professor

I've noticed the responsiveness issues as well. I also think the subscribed list should only show new and downloaded postcasts instead of showing all of them.

Everyone should make sure they leave reviews with their criticisms on the App Store. That should get them fixed sooner.

leggo

Had a play around with this last night. As a big podcaster, I'm not a fan tbh.

One big element that is lacking for me (or I just couldn't see) was that you can't make a playlist. I'll download my podcasts, put them in a playlist then listen to them one after the other in the order that I like. I also couldn't find a way that I could download new podcasts from the subscriptions in iTunes, which makes it kind of redundant when you already have the iPod and iTunes apps to accommodate this.

I'll keep it here in case they update it later to fill my needs, but I won't be switching for now.